Braves Sign Jeff Francoeur To Minor League Deal

WEDNESDAY: Francoeur will earn $1MM if he makes the Braves’ roster, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets. Another $1MM is available in incentives, and Francoeur can ask for a release if he isn’t on the Major League roster by March 31.

MONDAY: The Braves have announced that they’ve signed former star outfielder Jeff Francoeur on a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite. Francoeur is a client of CSE.

Francoeur, of course, finished third in NL Rookie of the Year balloting as a 21-year-old with the Braves in 2005 and played parts of five seasons in Atlanta before being shipped to the Mets for Ryan Church in 2009. Since then, he’s also appeared with the Rangers, Royals, Giants and Padres. He hit .258/.286/.433 in 343 plate appearances for the rebuilding Phillies in 2015, demonstrating good power but characteristically poor control of the strike zone (with just 13 walks).

Francoeur has a reputation as a good player to have in the clubhouse, however, so perhaps if he makes the Braves as a bench player he can help mentor their young roster. The Braves do already have a large contingent of veteran outfielders, with Nick Markakis, Michael Bourn, Nick Swisher and now Francoeur joining Ender Inciarte and Hector Olivera.

even if we did move swisher or Bourn, we still would have 5 OF’ers under contract in Inciarte, Markakis, Olivera, one of the two of swish/bourn and Bonafacio. and when you add in 12 pitchers, freeman, beckham,peterson, aybar, AJP, flowers , KJ and Garcia you see that BOTH Bourn and Swish would have to be moved for him to have a chance (but even then, not really as i would submit that they would be more likely to call up Mallex Smith as he can play all 3 OF spots)

this seems like a courtesy move to get him some exposure in the spring in case an injury on another team gives him a job opportunity. There is probably only slightly more than 0% chance he makes the 25 man roster.

I hope you’re right. Don’t want Swisher, Bourn nor Bonifacio anywhere near the Braves roster come opening day. All 3 would have to be moved before there’s even any talk about Frenchy making the 25-man roster.

First off, relax, it’s a minor-league deal which means there’s a lot he’s got to do and a lot that has to happen before he’ll even make the team. Next off Frenchy is coming off a year where he actually played decently for the Phillies. He hit .264/.292/.477 in 202 PA against RHP last year. Sure he can’t get on base but that .477 SLG would be welcomed in the Braves lineup.

Braves aren’t trying to lose 100 games. They won’t even lose 90 games in 2016. Take it to the bank and by 2017 the Braves will be right back in the playoff hunt.

Oh, and as bad as last year was the Braves attendance was still over 2 million.

2017 seems unlikely, 2018 is a much more reasonable as far as being a playoff contender goes. But much of that depends on prospect development and how the FO builds more offense through free agency/trades over the next few years.

I see 2016 shaping up to be the opposite of 2015. We’ll be horrible the first couple of months of the season as the young pitchers take their licks. But hopefully we’ll start seeing positive results in the second half of the season. I also don’t think it’s completely out of the question that Dansby Swanson and Mallex Smith are in Atlanta sometime this summer. I think they can end up with 75-78 wins because I believe the team is better than it was last year.

Hector Olivera, if he hits like he did in the minors, and Ender Inciarte both improve the Braves offense as well. A Garcia and KJ platoon at 3B will produce more offense than we got from 3B last year.

The bullpen will be miles better than it was last year when we couldn’t get anyone out after Jason Grilli got hurt and we traded Johnson to the Dodgers. Vizcaino was the only guy left that did anything. This year we’ve got plenty of options for the bullpen and some of them are proven like Grilli, Carpenter and Vizcaino.

I will be surprised if they win more than 72 games this year. The WAR doesn’t look good, the rotation could be a surprise, morel likely it’s going to be bottom 3.. But that’s ok, when you rebuild you have a few lost years.

@restinpeacebraves, you need to listen to autiger. And just out of curiosity, how does giving a home town guy a minor league deal come off as trolling? You do know we have the g braves and the Rome braves it’s a guarantee he would he help attendance for those teams. And seeing as how it’s a minor league deal…